From 2001 to 2010, U.S. median household income fell from $72,956 to $69,487. Now this is nominal dollars which magnifies the fall in household income for $72,956 in 2001 would be worth $89,996 in 2010 after adjusting for inflation as per the consumer price index (CPI).
The U.S. median household net worth, which is the value of assets minus debt, dropped from $129,582 to $93,150 over the same 10-year period. Again, this is in nominal dollars and $129,582 in 2001 would be $159,848 in 2010 after ajusting for inflation as per the consumer price index (CPI) (1).
(1) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/#chapter-1-overview
The results of the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS), released by the U.S. Census Bureau, show that between 2010 and 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income either fell or stayed the same in every state except Vermont and that the distribution of income became more inequitable (2).
Worse yet, a new 2012 study from Sentier Research shows that U.S. median household income has continued to fall since the "end" of the Great Recession stating, "almost every group is worse off now than it was three years ago" (3).
Also declining were U.S. real wages (4) and the U.S. middle class (5).
(2) http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb12-175.html
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/us-annual-income-recovery-recession_n_1828127.html
(4) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/us-incomes-falling-as-optimism-reaches-10-year-low_n_1022118.html
(5) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2012/08/pew-social-trends-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class.pdf
One of the social impacts of this has been that the wealthy are increasingly segregating themselves from their less fortunate neighbors as this August, 2012 Pew Reasearch report titled 'The Rise of Residential Segregation by Income' reveals (6).
(6) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/01/the-rise-of-residential-segregation-by-income/
Job growth for U.S. citizens became scarcer too. Domestic job creation is now well below what is needed even to meet new entrants to the labor market with the labor force participation rate at 63.5%, which is the lowest share of Americans over age 16 in the workforce since September 1981. As the Wall Street Journal stated, "That's going way backward!" (7).
(7) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443819404577637653650025944.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Complicating this dismal domestic labor market are statistics showing that in some areas of the country what domestic job creation there is has been increasingly going to immigrants both legal and illegal. Pew reported that in the second quarter of 2010, American citizens lost more than a million jobs while foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs (11). A Center For Immigration Studies (CIS) report showed that of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived immigrant workers (legal and illegal) (8a).
A November, 2012 CIS report titled 'Who Got Jobs During the Obama Presidency? Native and Immigrant Employment Growth, 2009 to 2012' reveals that, "Since President Obama took office, 67 percent of employment growth has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal)" (8b).
(8a) http://cis.org/immigrants-filled-most-new-jobs-in-Texas
(8b) http://cis.org/who-got-jobs-during-obama-presidency
Despite much of the new job growth now bypassing U.S. natural born citizens, the large influx of immigrants is one of the reasons (in addition to high U6 unemployment, a decrease in real wages, the nation's broken trade paradigm, failure to protect intellectual property and trade secrets from foreign nations to wield for an economic domestic competitive advantage, etc...) for the dramatically increased size of the nation’s low-income population, (9) their resulting dependence on welfare, (10) and their growing reliance on unreported untaxed income (11).
(9) http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population
(10) http://www.cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011
(11) http://cis.org/kammer/informal-economy
In the past, the U.S. simply absorbed the influx of foreign immigrants because U.S. businesses were booming and U.S. businesses used domestic labor almost exclusively. Free trade has changed that and now we simply don't have the jobs anymore. With demand for labor way way down and the supply of labor way way up, compensation for labor has also fallen. So there are fewer jobs and lower compensation and they are increasingly going to immigrants (both legal and illegal) who are creating immigrant networks that almost always hire other immigrants.
Except for the holiday Q4 temporary turn-around that occurs each year, all of these problems are getting worse over time not better.
Charitable donations have been seriously impacted (12), suicide rates are up (13), and the number of people who have fallen at least 12 months behind in student loan payments has risen by about a third over the last five years. Nearly one in every six borrowers with a student loan balance is currently in default (14).
(12) http://www.barna.org/donorscause-articles/571-the-economy-continues-to-squeeze-americans-charitable-giving
(13) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/suicide-rates-rise-in-u-s-as-economy-declines-cdc-study-finds.html
(14) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/business/once-a-student-now-dogged-by-collection-agencies.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Furthermore, the U.S. deficit for 2012 is the highest on record (after the supposed end of the Great Recession) at $1.327 trillion usd (15) and inflation is occurring.
Note that U.S. military spending for 2011 is the highest on record (after the end of the Iraq War) at almost $712 billion usd (16) though the Office of Management and Budget (17) revealed that U.S. military spending for 2012 decreased a few billion dollars to almost $706 billion from its high of almost $712 billion in 2011. It should be noted; however, that the Obama administration has predicted in the 'President's Budget' that U.S. military spending overall will rise again in 2013 and 2014 primarily due to defense-related debt interest. Wikipedia explains 2012 military expenditures in layperson's terms (18).
(15) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD
(16) http://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
(17) http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/
(18) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_breakdown_for_2012
Finally, primarily due to the state's enormous population, it's said that "as California goes: there goes the nation."
From the mid-1980s to 2005, California's population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000 (19).
(19) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277242682364690.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
But it is the next couple of decades that will see the absolute decline of the U.S. economy in the world according to a recent Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which states:
"On the basis of 2005 purchasing power parities (PPPs), China is projected to surpass the Euro Area in a year or so and the United States in a few more years, to become the largest economy in the world, and India is projected to surpass Japan in the next year or two and the Euro area in about 20 years" (20).
(20) http://www.oecd.org/economy/economicoutlookanalysisandforecasts/lookingto2060.htm
VIEW BONUS VIDEO: THE FLAW:
David Sington's documentary THE FLAW takes an in-depth look at how the credit bubble hastened the economic crash and is a documentary about the causes of the financial crisis, directed by David Sington, which splices the thoughts of economists such as Robert Shiller and Joseph Stiglitz with the testimony of participants in the housing market and some entertaining cartoons and archive clips. It takes its title from the testimony of Alan Greenspan to Congress in which he admitted to a flaw in his reasoning.
The U.S. median household net worth, which is the value of assets minus debt, dropped from $129,582 to $93,150 over the same 10-year period. Again, this is in nominal dollars and $129,582 in 2001 would be $159,848 in 2010 after ajusting for inflation as per the consumer price index (CPI) (1).
(1) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/22/the-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class/#chapter-1-overview
The results of the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS), released by the U.S. Census Bureau, show that between 2010 and 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income either fell or stayed the same in every state except Vermont and that the distribution of income became more inequitable (2).
Worse yet, a new 2012 study from Sentier Research shows that U.S. median household income has continued to fall since the "end" of the Great Recession stating, "almost every group is worse off now than it was three years ago" (3).
Also declining were U.S. real wages (4) and the U.S. middle class (5).
(2) http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb12-175.html
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/us-annual-income-recovery-recession_n_1828127.html
(4) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/us-incomes-falling-as-optimism-reaches-10-year-low_n_1022118.html
(5) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2012/08/pew-social-trends-lost-decade-of-the-middle-class.pdf
One of the social impacts of this has been that the wealthy are increasingly segregating themselves from their less fortunate neighbors as this August, 2012 Pew Reasearch report titled 'The Rise of Residential Segregation by Income' reveals (6).
(6) http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/01/the-rise-of-residential-segregation-by-income/
Job growth for U.S. citizens became scarcer too. Domestic job creation is now well below what is needed even to meet new entrants to the labor market with the labor force participation rate at 63.5%, which is the lowest share of Americans over age 16 in the workforce since September 1981. As the Wall Street Journal stated, "That's going way backward!" (7).
(7) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443819404577637653650025944.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Complicating this dismal domestic labor market are statistics showing that in some areas of the country what domestic job creation there is has been increasingly going to immigrants both legal and illegal. Pew reported that in the second quarter of 2010, American citizens lost more than a million jobs while foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs (11). A Center For Immigration Studies (CIS) report showed that of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived immigrant workers (legal and illegal) (8a).
A November, 2012 CIS report titled 'Who Got Jobs During the Obama Presidency? Native and Immigrant Employment Growth, 2009 to 2012' reveals that, "Since President Obama took office, 67 percent of employment growth has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal)" (8b).
(8a) http://cis.org/immigrants-filled-most-new-jobs-in-Texas
(8b) http://cis.org/who-got-jobs-during-obama-presidency
Despite much of the new job growth now bypassing U.S. natural born citizens, the large influx of immigrants is one of the reasons (in addition to high U6 unemployment, a decrease in real wages, the nation's broken trade paradigm, failure to protect intellectual property and trade secrets from foreign nations to wield for an economic domestic competitive advantage, etc...) for the dramatically increased size of the nation’s low-income population, (9) their resulting dependence on welfare, (10) and their growing reliance on unreported untaxed income (11).
(9) http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population
(10) http://www.cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011
(11) http://cis.org/kammer/informal-economy
In the past, the U.S. simply absorbed the influx of foreign immigrants because U.S. businesses were booming and U.S. businesses used domestic labor almost exclusively. Free trade has changed that and now we simply don't have the jobs anymore. With demand for labor way way down and the supply of labor way way up, compensation for labor has also fallen. So there are fewer jobs and lower compensation and they are increasingly going to immigrants (both legal and illegal) who are creating immigrant networks that almost always hire other immigrants.
Except for the holiday Q4 temporary turn-around that occurs each year, all of these problems are getting worse over time not better.
Charitable donations have been seriously impacted (12), suicide rates are up (13), and the number of people who have fallen at least 12 months behind in student loan payments has risen by about a third over the last five years. Nearly one in every six borrowers with a student loan balance is currently in default (14).
(12) http://www.barna.org/donorscause-articles/571-the-economy-continues-to-squeeze-americans-charitable-giving
(13) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/suicide-rates-rise-in-u-s-as-economy-declines-cdc-study-finds.html
(14) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/business/once-a-student-now-dogged-by-collection-agencies.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Furthermore, the U.S. deficit for 2012 is the highest on record (after the supposed end of the Great Recession) at $1.327 trillion usd (15) and inflation is occurring.
Note that U.S. military spending for 2011 is the highest on record (after the end of the Iraq War) at almost $712 billion usd (16) though the Office of Management and Budget (17) revealed that U.S. military spending for 2012 decreased a few billion dollars to almost $706 billion from its high of almost $712 billion in 2011. It should be noted; however, that the Obama administration has predicted in the 'President's Budget' that U.S. military spending overall will rise again in 2013 and 2014 primarily due to defense-related debt interest. Wikipedia explains 2012 military expenditures in layperson's terms (18).
(15) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD
(16) http://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
(17) http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/
(18) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_breakdown_for_2012
Finally, primarily due to the state's enormous population, it's said that "as California goes: there goes the nation."
From the mid-1980s to 2005, California's population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000 (19).
(19) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277242682364690.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
But it is the next couple of decades that will see the absolute decline of the U.S. economy in the world according to a recent Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which states:
"On the basis of 2005 purchasing power parities (PPPs), China is projected to surpass the Euro Area in a year or so and the United States in a few more years, to become the largest economy in the world, and India is projected to surpass Japan in the next year or two and the Euro area in about 20 years" (20).
(20) http://www.oecd.org/economy/economicoutlookanalysisandforecasts/lookingto2060.htm
VIEW BONUS VIDEO: THE FLAW:
David Sington's documentary THE FLAW takes an in-depth look at how the credit bubble hastened the economic crash and is a documentary about the causes of the financial crisis, directed by David Sington, which splices the thoughts of economists such as Robert Shiller and Joseph Stiglitz with the testimony of participants in the housing market and some entertaining cartoons and archive clips. It takes its title from the testimony of Alan Greenspan to Congress in which he admitted to a flaw in his reasoning.
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